START-UP is the EPO's initiative to support young art in a new community outreach programme. Five up-and-coming artists, who are students or graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, have been invited to take part in temporary interventions at the EPO Boards of Appeal site in Haar. The exhibition is unusual in that it features not just recent artworks but also site-specific interventions and performances in conference rooms and the foyer. START-UP is providing the funds for the experiment, which offers the young artists an opportunity to launch their careers and present their work in a corporate setting for the first time. The exhibition sees its role as that of a creative lab, in which the artists explore current science and technology issues and turn them into installations in the various spaces.
The opening night began with the live performance of the Korean stage design graduate Ji Hyung Nam; Eva, Adam
und Birne (Eve, Adam and the Pear)
was her final year project for her degree in Scenography and Stage Costume
Design under Prof. Katrin Brack last summer. Her charming, whimsical
re-interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve presents the pear as an
alternative symbol for the fruit of knowledge and sets the scene for the live
performance, in which she herself plays the lead role of Eve. Ji Hyung Nam was accepted as a master's student at the academy
and has already appeared in numerous theatre, film and television productions to great acclaim
Artist's Room 1: Lena Policzka's artistic perspective is dominated by her conceptual approach to the visible world. Her works in the fields of sculpture, kinetic installation, photography and video turn the spotlight onto themes from nature and science, along with the social conventions of a post-industrial world. Through her art, Policzka looks at topics that are currently under discussion, such as genetic research or mankind's relentless pursuit of optimisation, from a different perspective. The artist frequently refers to her works as philosophical models. The subjects of her projects are her response to the pressing issues of our time. Optimatics II and Golden Spike represent two facets of her musings on stem cell research and whether humanity has supplanted nature as the creative force.
Artist's room 2: Pauline Stroux conducts research into FOODure/the future of food and appears in different roles as her alter ego. In doing so, she reflects on today's eating habits, extrapolating them to predict our future diet. The idea of an infusion for an optimised lifestyle led to the founding of the fictitious company OYL. Optimize Your Life. The company's products and services will be presented in the EPO as multimedia installations and a pop-up bar, which offers visitors a chance to start by optimising their own metabolism. By presenting identical, carefully staged appearances, the artist consciously designs a setting that is reminiscent of a laboratory, a hospital or a spa, while creating an ultramodern, futuristic impression.
Artist's Room 3: Rosa Stern is an artistic duo, whose name derives from the artists' names, Rosanna Marie Pondorf and Simon Sternal. The pair have been working together for approximately two years and will join forces here to transform a room. International payment flows in virtual money transfers, the disclosure of information to issue blank credit cards using open-source software and cash transactions are the subjects of Rosanna Marie Pondorf's works. Simon Sternal traces the digital trails left by gaming communities, using graphic media to transpose them to a multi-part wall chart installation. His pen-and-ink drawings take symbols from the scripts of these games, weaving them into a virtual universe that highlights the fetish of popular culture and reveals the digital personality of the user.
